b e n j a m i n f a l k e n b e r g

Well, he fell out of his toddler bed at least once overnight…

I’m pretty sure he fell out the first time and actually got right back into bed, which was pretty cool. I heard a pretty loud THUD in the room and I was debating…do I go in, or just let him be? I figured–the still-new-at-this-guy that I am–that I’d go in and make sure he was at least OK… I didn’t want to go in this morning and find him laying there with a snapped neck or anything. Ridiculous thinking, perhaps, but hey, new parent, can’t be too careful!

I opened the door the first time and I couldn’t see him; it’s not just a redecorated room, but an entirely different room altogether…and we keep it pitch black/dark. He’s been sleeping in total darkness since he was born, basically–the exception being naps, etc, where he sleeps in bright daylight.

I grabbed a little flashlight and went back; he was laying across the bottom of the toddler bed like he crawled back in and flopped right onto his stomach and passed out.

The second time, about an hour or so later (around 1-1.30am), was another same-volume THUD, but this time he apparently woke up enough to not recognize where he was and started screaming and sobbing. I was in there in about 10 seconds; he was sitting on the floor next to the bed (I had to feel around a bit because his room is so dark). I picked him up, and before his head hit my shoulder he was out and dead to the world again. I patted him down and stuck him back in bed, and he was fine until he woke up this morning around 8:30.

We close his door, but the door frame is a little wonky and the door doesn’t quite latch… He can reach the knob, but he’s still too short to turn it. Just in case he manages to pull the door open, we have a gate up in the hallway to block the stairs. And of course our door to our bedroom is open for him if he gets out, so he can at least get to us easily.

For his first night, I think it went quite well! :)

And yeah, we know it’s gonna get more…interesting. But we’ll take what we can get as we go… ;)

With Mom and Dad watching, Benjamin climbed the stairs from our first floor to our second, just moments ago.

The entire flight of stairs. Effortlessly.

Mom was right there with him, baiting him with a stack of papers placed several steps above him, and making sure he didn’t fall.

Isn’t he too young for this? :)

Benjamin’s had a few more good and interesting things happen to him over the last several days. They always seem to happen in clusters!

So… our apologies for not posting in a while; he’s been a little under the weather, and we’ve been a little more busy than normal.

Without further ado:

10 Sept 2006

• His second tooth (right side of the lower middle two) finally poked through. We’re up to two now! His first one is pretty noticeable now, although he really doesn’t enjoy people trying to pull his mouth open to look at things…which means we don’t have any pictures of his new teeth yet at all!

12 Sept 2006

• His first cold! (and other than the bout of diarrhea he had a while back, his first time being noticeably sick!) He’s still recovering from his cold, and combined with the teething, this last week was fun-fun-fun!

14 Sept 2006

• Climbed his first stair (the first flat platform stair at the base of a set of stairs)!

15 Sept  2006

• Climbed to the second stair before his mother stopped him… He might have kept going, for all we know. He really wanted the reach the short stack of paperwork Mom left there to take upstairs to the office later…

He’s also doing some cruising now! He’s been doing a little bumbling around by the step, walking along the base of the stairs, holding on, for about 3 feet or so, back and forth. Today, however, he got up, held the coffee table, and very smoothly walked the length of it!

He’s not supposed to be doing this yet! Yikes! Stacey says it’s a roughly 11-months-along thing. The walking can’t be that far off…

He’s also spending a lot more time standing up and experimenting with letting go…free-standing! He falls pretty reliably on his butt, luckily, but we’ve seen him take one step so far (before falling)… He’s definitely testing his balance as much as he can, and you can see the gears turning in his head as he works out his stance and his next move/steps. It’s really fun and interesting to watch him.